Since I wasn’t sure where to take her, I decided to wait in the forest for a while.
Logan and Rey offered to prepare for our departure, so I gladly accepted their offer. Meanwhile, Ivy and I continued keeping watch over the insect queen wrapped tightly like a cocoon.
Half-asleep, I basked in the warm sunlight in a cozy spot I’d found, when suddenly, there was movement from the so-called queen, who looked like a giant bagworm.
“—Huh!?”
It was about an hour after the battle when Icicle finally woke up.
Thanks to the healing magic I had cast earlier, her wounds were closed, so her life wasn’t in immediate danger—or at least I hoped not.
“Where is this!? Who am I?—Oh, that’s right! I am Icicle, the Insect Queen!”
With a theatrical flair reminiscent of a stage actor I’d seen once, Icicle exclaimed dramatically.
Her loud voice reverberated, making my ears ring painfully.
Combined with her over-the-top delivery, it was enough to make me feel utterly drained.
When I glanced at Ivy, I noticed an unusually annoyed expression on her face.
I probably looked just as exasperated as she did.
“How dare you treat me, Third left Finger of the Demon King’s Ten Fingers, with such disrespect—”
Hmm? Did this bagworm queen just say something outrageous…?
It seemed we needed to hear more details.
There’s a remote island said to be inhabited by fearsome monsters.
On that island lives the ruler of the monsters, known as the Demon King.
That much information had been passed down from someone to someone else, but the Demon King was still shrouded in mystery.
What do they look like? How strong are they? What kind of person are they?
And most importantly—what harm do they intend to bring to us humans?
Even the crucial question of how they might endanger humanity remained unclear.
But one thing was certain: monsters were the enemies of humanity.
The intelligent ones especially seemed intent on harming us.
The long, bloody history between humans and monsters was proof of that.
According to Ivy, the Black Legion we fought in Akoup before were apparently vanguards of the Demon King’s army.
And now, without much time in between, we were facing yet another being connected to the Demon King.
Perhaps there was a link between these two events.
For example—what if the Demon King was finally beginning their conquest of humanity?
“Who do you think you’re dealing with—eek!?”
The haughty Insect Queen was as lively as ever, but when I floated a single Light Arrow in the air, she immediately fell silent.
She must have recalled the pain of the beating she had received earlier.
She stared at me, trembling and stammering.
For good measure, I shot the Light Arrow, lightly grazing her carapace.
Then I quickly healed the wound with magic.
“...”
Icicle stopped running her mouth.
Her earlier bravado had completely disappeared, leaving her looking subdued.
“Now, will you tell us what we need to know?”
I asked with a smile. She let out a squeak in response, her throat trembling audibly.
Somehow, I started feeling like the villain here...
Dealing with monsters who could communicate was always tricky.
Ivy often told me to kill the enemy if it came to it.
Nowadays, I could bring myself to kill monsters.
...Humans were still a different story, though.
But monsters who could talk? Those I still struggled with.
The information Icicle shared with us was, for the most part, completely unfamiliar from a human perspective.
What she explained was essentially common knowledge in the monster world.
Apparently, there was a hierarchy among monsters.
The logic was simple: the strong ruled, and the weak served them.
Since stronger monsters tended to be smarter, the monster world operated on a crude system where the strong led the weak.
Many weaker monsters didn’t have proper intelligence, so they were dominated through brute force.
There were even magical tools designed to subjugate monsters.
Among the many things she told us, one piece of information stood out:
she was part of a group called the Demon King’s Ten Fingers.
They seemed to be the equivalent of high-ranking officers in the Demon King’s army.
The ten strongest monsters, recognized for their power, were granted a portion of the Demon King’s power.
They were given claws by the Demon King and bestowed the title of their respective claw.
Their strength increased from the Left Five Fingers to the Left One Finger, while the Right Five Fingers were far stronger than the Left One Finger.
That was the major dividing line in their hierarchy.
The rankings of the Right Five Fingers hadn’t changed for hundreds of years, but monsters frequently fought bloody battles to claim the positions of the Left Fingers.
Wow, the monster society was undoubtedly a group of absolute meatheads.
I wasn’t a fan of that kind of mentality and hoped to stay as uninvolved as possible.
Just as I was thinking that, Icicle dropped a bombshell.
“But the other Ten Fingers are also after you, you know? I’ve never met them, but rumor has it that even the Demon King is quite interested in you.
After all, you defeated that foolish specter. Whether for better or worse, you have our attention now.”
The Demon King’s Ten Fingers… defeated?
Wait, was she talking about us?